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The Rice Raiders’ varsity baseball team has had a combination of traits that have made it difficult to pick up wins against a difficult district schedule. For one, their defense and pitching has not been able to frustrate the strong offenses from other teams in the district. On the offensive side, the Raiders show flashes of potency but also have difficulties in sustaining stretches of quality at-bats or high-scoring innings. Both of these issues appeared yet again as the Raiders suffered two big district losses last week, first against Industrial and then later in the week against their county rivals the Columbus Cardinals.
Vs Industrial, L, 14-0 The Raiders held things as tight as possible for two innings before letting go of the rope and allowing the Cobras to break out to a big lead. After two innings, Industrial had just a one-point lead as the Raiders held their opponents scoreless in the second. However, the Cobras broke the game open in the next few innings, scoring five runs in the third inning and six runs in the fourth to push the lead to double figures. Two more runs in the fifth inning paired with another scoreless inning by Rice led to the early, mercy- rule finish.
The Raiders actually outhit their opponents despite the shutout loss in blowout fashion. Rice had five hits to the Cobras’ four led by Daedrick Johnson with two hits of his own. While the Raiders allowed just four hits from the Cobras, they still struggled to keep Industrial from reaching base as Rice’s pitchers threw out 14 walks.
Vs Columbus, L, 18-2 Rice found a bit more offense as they faced off against their county rivals from Columbus in the second-to-last regular season game of the year. The Raiders picked up one more hit than in their game previously in the week, finishing with six hits against the Cardinals. After allowing three runs in the first inning, the Raiders responded with a run at the bottom of the first to cut into the lead. However, the Raiders’ defense struggled to contain the Columbus batters as the Cards went on to five runs in the next two innings, and 10 combined runs in the fourth and fifth to put the game to bed. The Raiders allowed Columbus to pick up 15 hits as Rice had difficulties dealing with their opponent’s hot hitting. Rice scored one more run in the fourth inning, but the game was already well in hand for Columbus with nearly a double-digit lead on the scoreboard.
Daedrick Johnson once again led the team in hitting with two for the day. Zane Zbranek, Jaren Brown, Josue Belman and Ruston Krenek provided the teams other hits as they all picked up one hit each.
